liberal catnip

Stelmach Survives Leadership Review

2009-11-08T08:27:00.000-07:00

No surprise here, although the number is higher than expected since rumours of his impending demise were rampant following the recent upsurge in poll numbers for the neocon-like Wildrose Alliance party.

Stelmach wins 77% support for leadership while the party faithful were confronted by some 700 protesters.

Apropos.

Photo credit (for Balloon Boy Stelmach): Gavin Young, Calgary Herald

Quote du Jour: Alberta's Clueless Energy Minister

2009-11-06T11:06:00.002-07:00

From Thursday's Just Answer the Damn Question! Period:

Mr. Taylor: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Geez, this is funny. Not every stakeholder is spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars advertising on radio, on television, and in the newspaper. The minister dodged my question yesterday when he would not state in this Assembly how much this propaganda campaign is costing. To the minister: how many taxpayer dollars are you spending on advertising on this pro Bill 50 campaign? Simple enough for you?

Mr. Knight: Well, Mr. Speaker, again, I don’t know what constitutes advertising. Apparently, he’s an expert in the field. So if he would like to send me a letter that indicates which pieces of this stuff he considers to be information for consumers and which pieces he considers to be advertising, perhaps what we could do for him then – you know, he’s the expert on advertising. He told me that yesterday. That’s fine. If he’s the expert, let him tell me which pieces are advertising and which pieces are distributing information that Albertans want.

Related debauchery:

Alberta [Government] private plane tab $383K

Is it any wonder the Cons' poll numbers are taking a nose dive?

Will Steady Eddy survive his leadership review this weekend? Highly doubtful but Cons are known to stick with losers til the bitter end so stay tuned.

Shooting Rampage at Fort Hood, Texas

2009-11-05T15:18:00.005-07:00

The latest from Lt General Bob Cone at Fort Hood:

12 dead
31 injured
3 gunmen ("soldiers") - 1 dead (see update - he's not dead), 2 in custody (see update below)

Cone said the shootings occurred in the "soldier readiness" area.

It was not immediately known whether the victims were all soldiers or civilians, but Cone said at least one of those killed was a civilian police officer and NBC affiliate KCEN-TV of Waco reported that at least four SWAT officers were among those wounded.

It's too early to know what the possible motive may have been.

Update:

CNN has named the slain gunman: "Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan, according to a law enforcement source. The source believes he is 39 or 40 years old."

Video from the Associated Press:

Update:

The gunman was an army psychiatrist.

Hasan "was scheduled to be deployed and was upset about that," Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) said on CNN after receiving a briefing from Army officials.

...

Two other soldiers were initially apprehended on suspicion of involvement in the attack, but they were later released after questioning, and another soldier was picked up as a suspect, military officials said.

UPDATE:

Officials: 12 killed in Fort Hood shootings; suspect alive

(CNN) -- At least one soldier opened fire on a military processing center at Fort Hood in Texas on Thursday, killing 12 and wounding 31 others, officials at the Army base said.

The gunman, who officials initially said was killed, is wounded but alive, Lt. Gen. Bob Cone said.

Cone said that man is believed to be the only shooter.

Italy Convicts CIA Agents of Kidnapping and Rendition

2009-11-05T09:15:00.006-07:00

Well, at least there's justice for 'extraordinary rendition' victims in one jurisdiction in this world.

In the case of Abu Omar who was snatched from the streets of Milan in 2003 and rendered to Egypt to be tortured (known as the 'Imam rapito affair' in Italy), Human Rights Watch weighs in:

(Milan) - An Italian court's conviction of 23 agents of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for kidnapping is an historic repudiation of the CIA's crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. The Milan court also found that two Italian officials illegally collaborated in CIA abuses.

The judge said he could not pronounce any verdict against five of the seven Italians on trial for the 2003 abduction of an Egyptian imam because they were protected by the state secrecy doctrine. Of the 26 Americans who were on trial, all of them in absentia, the court found that three were protected by diplomatic immunity guarantees.

Robert Seldon Lady, alleged to be the CIA station chief in Milan at the time of the kidnapping, received an eight-year sentence, the most serious penalty that the court handed down in the case. [See his 'I was only following orders' defense here. -catnip]

"The Milan court sent a powerful message: the CIA can't just abduct people off the streets. It's illegal, unacceptable, and unjustified," said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism program director at Human Rights Watch. "Both the Italian and US governments should now be on notice that justice authorities will not ignore crimes committed under the guise of fighting terrorism."

...

The verdicts today also stand in stark contrast to a disappointing decision issued on November 2 by a US federal appellate court in New York, which dismissed the suit brought by Canadian rendition victim Maher Arar. Arar was detained while in transit at John F. Kennedy airport in September 2002, then rendered by the CIA to Jordan and Syria, where he was brutally tortured for nearly a year.

Arar won't find justice in the United States - not when Obama has decided to continue the rendition program while providing legal cover for CIA agents who flagrantly break the law. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss... His administration may have walked away from the 'Global War on Terror" moniker of Bushco but it's obviously still very much in play.

And, if you followed the Niger/yellowcake forgery story closely, you'll remember this name:

The Italian defendants included Gen. Nicolò Pollari, the former head of SISMI, Italy's military intelligence service, who was forced to resign over Abu Omar's abduction and rendition, and Pollari's former deputy, Marco Mancini.

in 2005, the Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported, as translated by The American Prospect, that in the 2002 run up to the Iraq war, Pollari had a suspicious meeting with then deputy National Security adviser Stephen Hadley.

The paper goes on to note the significance of that date, highlighting the appearance of a little-noticed story in Panorama a weekly magazine owned by Italian Prime Minister and Bush ally Silvio Berlusconi, that was published three days after Pollari's meeting with Hadley. The magazine's September 12, 2002, issue claimed that Iraq's intelligence agency, the Mukhabarat, had acquired 500 tons of uranium from Nigeria through a Jordanian intermediary. (While this September 2002 Panorama report mentioned Nigeria, the forgeries another Panorama reporter would be proferred less than a month later purportedly concerned Niger.)

The Sismi chief's previously undisclosed meeting with Hadley, who was promoted earlier this year to national security adviser, occurred one month before a murky series of events culminated in the U.S. government obtaining copies of the Niger forgeries.

Thick as thieves (and forgers and kidnappers and torturers and murderers) - the lot of them.

Crocodile tears from one of those found guilty:

EXCLUSIVE: Convicted CIA Spy Says "We Broke the Law"

One of the 23 Americans convicted today by an Italian court says the United States "broke the law" in the CIA kidnapping of a Muslim cleric Abu Omar in Milan in 2003.

"And we are paying for the mistakes right now, whoever authorized and approved this," said former CIA officer Sabrina deSousa in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC's World News with Charles Gibson.

DeSousa says the U.S. "abandoned and betrayed" her and the others who were put on trial for the kidnapping. She was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison.

Representative Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), a member of the House Intelligence Committee told ABC News that the trial was a disaster for CIA officers like DeSousa on the frontline.

"I think these people have been put out there. They've been hung out to dry. They're taking the fall potentially for a decision that was made by their superiors in our agencies. It's the wrong place to go."

Just which part of kidnapping is illegal and is punishable under the law didn't DeSousa understand? The Nuremberg defense rears its ugly head once again. And exactly how is she "paying" for anything? She's free, obviously. No one rendered her to Italy to actually stand trial.

And having Hoekstra as your number one defender? What a joke. The minute he calls for prosecutions of Bush administration officials - those "superiors", let me know.

Related:

Scott Horton: Judgment in Milan

On Vaccinations, the Soviet Union, and Chickens

2009-11-03T10:00:00.003-07:00

Don Braid writes in the Calgary Herald:

Only Alberta has been forced to close all vaccination clinics for four full days. It's still a mystery why our authorities decided to go for mass immunization rather than the more controlled approach adopted by most other provinces.

But there is a clue in Health Minister Ron Liepert's comment last week about avoiding "Soviet mode."

He was talking about his distaste for asking people to prove they're high risk in order to get a shot. But the minister soon got exactly what he dreads--a classic Soviet-mode breakdown.

The symptoms are familiar to anyone who spent time in the old Soviet Union.

First, you line up to get something the government controls by monopoly.

Everyone shuffles along in perfect communal equality --the healthy along with the sick, the pregnant, the very young and the very old.

Hours or days later you finally reach the front of the line, only to learn that somebody else got your chicken.

Then they close the line until some undisclosed date when distant central authorities can produce and deliver more chickens.

The swine flu lines went through all those stages last week. Toward the end, parts of Calgary looked like some dreary Moscow street corner in 1975.

As Liberal MLA Dave Taylor put it, Liepert is "sucking and blowing" at the same time.

Meanwhile, the chickens have not come home to roost yet since no one's been fired for the mishandling of this colossal mess.

The Alberta government is set to announce a revised plan for restarting its vaccination program this week after suspending it over the weekend.

Related:

Don Martin asks where those 6 million doses are.

MPs held an emergency H1N1 debate on Monday nite. I'd wager that people interested in medical drama tuned into House on the teevee instead.

Speaking of mass confusion:

Children from 6 months to 9 years old should still get two doses, about a month apart, Dr. Fauci said. But the first dose usually provides partial protection, meaning a child might still catch the flu but would be more likely to have a mild case.

The World Health Organization last week recommended one dose of vaccine for all children, but the United States is ignoring that advice. The organization’s primary goal is to make sure that the world’s vaccine supplies stretch as far as possible among the world’s children. It endorses vaccine-stretching adjuvants and favors one dose per child so more children can get one.

Federal health officials, by contrast, are trying to make sure that American children are fully protected first. They have also decided not to use adjuvants, even though they think they are safe, because anti-vaccine lobbyists have campaigned against them, calling them dangerous, and officials feared that some Americans would be scared away from being vaccinated.

One dose? Two doses? What's right for kids when it comes to H1N1 vaccine?

Update:

Alberta's Vaccinations Will Resume on Thursday, Nov 5

H1N1 High Risk Targeted Immunization

Due to the unexpected national shortage of the H1N1 vaccine, Alberta Health Services and Alberta Health and Wellness announced plans to begin targeted immunization of Albertans at high risk.

* Starting on Thursday, November 5, children aged 6 months to under five years as of November 1st will be targeted. Proof of age (Health Care card, birth certificate or other valid identification) must be provided.
* On Friday, November 6, the program will expand to include pregnant women.

At this time, the vaccine will not be available to other Albertans. When more vaccine becomes available from the manufacturer, the targeted immunization program will be further expanded to include people under 65 with chronic health conditions. Details will be announced as more information becomes available on the vaccine supply.

Alrighty. Well, I still have lupus and I'm still high-risk with no available vaccination in sight. Great.

Pick a Hill to Die On, Iggy

2009-11-02T11:44:00.004-07:00

I find it amusing, that when the opposition party is in opposition, that the media are constantly pressing us to lay out our wares - constantly 'put your big ideas in front of the public'. The reality is the government has been elected to govern and we will come out with a platform when Canadians are ready to make their choice because we're into a general election. Mr Ignatieff has been very forthright in speeches on foreign policy, on energy and the environment and on a range of areas, including most recently issues affecting women - the general principles of which he's following. Now, the big bold ideas that you want to see, the brilliant strokes that the media are looking for - why would we lay those out? Why would we telegraph those to a government that has, in its unbelievably cynical, partisan way, taken everything that's said, twisted it out of context, perverted the meaning, perverted the message? Why would we do that in advance when we haven't got a level playing field to lay those out?

- Alfred Apps, President of the Liberal Party on CTV's Question Period responding to a question by Craig Oliver about the lack of a Liberal Party platform

Flashback: Ignatieff wants campaign platform by June [2009]

Newly confirmed Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff wants his party to have a campaign platform ready for June, but says that doesn't mean he's looking for a spring election.

"I've told my people I want a platform in June," he said at a news conference Sunday.

"And don't derive electoral timetables from that," he added. "You asked me a question, I'm giving you an answer. I'm not playing games with you."

It's clear that the Liberal party has become gun-shy after Stephane Dion was trounced last year by the Cons over his carbon tax plan.

What Mr Apps fails to grasp is that the release of a Liberal party platform is a necessity if he wants the public to distinguish between his party, the Cons and the NDP. This isn't about what's good for the media or the Harper government. His reason for the party withholding its platform simply makes him - and Iggy - look weak - especially since Ignatieff had promised a platform by a June deadline that has long come and gone. And if he'd been paying attention, Apps would know that Ignatieff's speeches, which he seems to think provide the public with a clear view of his policies, are about as popular as his sagging poll numbers. (19%? Even Dick Cheney has better numbers than that).

Apps may find it "amusing" but I doubt he'll be laughing when the Liberals lose yet another election thanks to the party disarray that has ensued since Ignatieff was crowned.

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T20:13:00.000-06:00

Posting some version of the Robert Service poem The Cremation of Sam McGee, my favourite poem, has become a sort of Halloween blogging ritual for me.

So, here it is again: Hank Snow's version. Enjoy.

Alberta Suspends H1N1 Vaccination Clinics

2009-10-31T19:02:00.001-06:00

This province is run by morans.

Via the CBC:

Alberta health officials said Saturday the province's H1N1 immunization clinics have been suspended immediately because of a national reduction in the number of available vaccine doses.

Officials said they will roll out a plan early next week for targeted H1N1 vaccines, focusing only on those at the greatest risk. Mass immunizations likely will not resume for at least a few weeks.

Targeted recipients are pregnant women, children six months to five years of age, people under 65 with chronic health conditions, people living in remote and isolated communities and health-care workers.

Alberta Health Services' senior medical health officer Dr. Gerry Predy said the details of the targeted immunization clinics will be released Monday.

He said the suspension of mass immunizations is in effect until further notice.

"It is important for the public not to panic and to respect the priorities for vaccination," Predy said.

"Again, we're asking people to be calm. There will be more vaccine and there should be enough vaccine for everybody who wants it."

The announcement comes after H1N1 vaccination clinics in Edmonton and Calgary were overwhelmed Saturday, forcing clinics to close their lineups and turn people away.

Thousands of people showed up looking for vaccines, some lining up as early as 4 a.m.

At the Olympic Oval in Calgary, more than 3,000 people lined up.

By the time the clinic was shut down early Saturday morning, officials said the wait had already reached an estimated eight hours and the lineup stretched about half a kilometre outside the building.

And then they go on to justify not targeting high-risk people first to begin with.

[insert expletive here]

Related:
A quote from the Health ~~Minister~~ Moran:

Liepert, meanwhile, said "Albertans are not getting the message" about prioritizing vulnerable patients for the vaccines.

However, he maintained the government is not going into "Soviet Union mode" where they will have people in lineups prove they're in the highrisk category.

Quote du Jour: H1N1 Hysteria

2009-10-30T13:43:00.001-06:00

The Tory MLA for Battle River-Wainwright, Doug Griffiths, has been fielding complaints from his constituents after a clinic in Wainwright ran out of vaccine earlier this week.

Griffiths believes both politicians and the public need to settle down.

"This sort of pandemic hysteria is, is — I don't understand why people are doing it. It's the flu," he said.

Gee. Maybe the word "pandemic" and the message from various levels of government that people should be vaccinated has something to do with that - no?

Day 5 of the vaccination program here in Alberta and the handling of the situation is still an absolute mess.

People wanting the swine flu vaccine in Calgary are being turned away as the clinics in Alberta's two biggest cities prepare for an early Friday closure.

Clinics in Calgary and Edmonton have been open every day this week until 8 p.m. But for the next three days, the clinics are set to close at 3:30 p.m. in Calgary and 4 p.m. in Edmonton.

All five of Calgary's H1N1 vaccinations have closed their lines to new people as of noon, Alberta Health Services announced. Those already waiting in line will get the shot.

On Friday morning, new flu assessment clinics opened in Calgary and Edmonton with the aim of easing congestion in hospital emergency rooms.

Before the clinic opened Friday at 8 a.m. in Calgary, about a dozen people shivered in line, eyeing the empty chairs inside the closed building.

"Adding to that frustration is that more than 200 people waiting for the H1N1 vaccine in the very same building are being allowed to wait inside," said CBC News reporter Erin Collins.

What's wrong with this picture?

On top of all of that, Alberta Health minister Liepert is now saying that vaccination clinics may close next week because they're running out of the vaccine.

When I saw my doctor the other day, who was at least able to give me my regular flu shot, he said his office was just placing an order for the vaccine and he held out very little hope that it would actually be delivered. He was not impressed with the government's handling of the situation.

I'm still "high-risk" since I have lupus. Exactly where am I supposed to get the vaccine? And when?

Adding insult to injury - after instituting a hiring freeze for nurses not too long ago - the Stelmach government (tone deaf to the core) picked this frenzied time to ask health care workers to take a 2 year wage freeze. Every Conservative government Alberta has had for the past 40 years has inevitably screwed up the province's finances while pandering to Big Oil and the first place they hit for cuts is always health care. Why the boneheaded majority of voters keep electing these fiscally-challenged clowns is beyond me. Then again everybody knows how scary those "socialists" in the opposition are, right? Dog forbid Albertans should actually try a new ideological regime that might actually improve their lives. No. Conservatism is God - no matter how many times it's been proven otherwise. See: Market, Free - Crash.

Meanwhile, at the federal level, the Minister of Damage Control, John Baird, told concerned opposition members during Friday's QP that his party isn't making this a political issue. That, after weeks - months - of pointing the finger at the Liberal party as if it's the actual party in power in charge of dealing with pandemic preparedness. When all else fails - and it has - send out Mr Pit Bull to provide cover for the Cons.

Related:

Temperatures rise as 'flu rage' explodes across Canada

Obama's Extrajudicial Executions

2009-10-29T11:36:00.001-06:00

"Extrajudicial executions". That's a nasty phrase, isn't it? And to attach the much-loved and vaunted President Obama's name to it? Well, that's almost akin to blasphemy. But, if you refuse to call the US military drone attacks on Pakistani civilians exactly what they are no matter which party you support, you're simply a hypocrite with no sense of justice for innocent civilians being killed by a war machine that refuses to recognize another country's sovereignty. It is as simple as that.

Via the BBC:

US warned on deadly drone attacks

The US has been warned that its use of drones to target suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan may violate international law.

UN human rights investigator Philip Alston said the US should explain the legal basis for attacking individuals with the remote-controlled aircraft.

He said the CIA had to show accountability to international laws which ban arbitrary executions.

Drones have killed about 600 people in north-west Pakistan since August 2008.

Mr Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions, told the BBC: "My concern is that these drones, these Predators, are being operated in a framework which may well violate international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

"The onus is really on the government of the United States to reveal more about the ways in which it makes sure that arbitrary executions, extrajudicial executions, are not in fact being carried out through the use of these weapons."

The US, of course, can't prove that executions aren't being carried out because that's exactly what's happening. Any time a drone hits a suspected al Qaeda or Taliban member, the US military boasts about it. And whenever there are reports of civilians being killed, the US military offers its immediate standard denials - labeling them as "militants" or "insurgents" as they have done in Iraq and Afghanistan - while promising to "investigate" further. Those investigations too often result in an eventual admission of guilt that amounts to a correction on page B8 of your local newspaper - if they ever admit fault at all.

Take a look at the numbers if you're in the mood to justify the use of these drones:

LAHORE: Of the 60 cross-border predator strikes carried out by the Afghanistan-based American drones in Pakistan between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders, besides perishing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians. The success percentage of the US predator strikes thus comes to not more than six per cent.

And since then? Back to the BBC:

Increased use

Mr Alston raised the issue in a report to the UN General Assembly's human rights committee on Tuesday.

At a news conference afterwards, he said he had become increasingly concerned at the increase in their use since June, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The US told the UN in June that it has a legal framework to respond to unlawful killings. It also said the UN Human Rights Council and the General Assembly have no role in relation to killings during an armed conflict.

But Mr Alston described that response as "simply untenable".

No role? I don't recall the US government using that line about the recent Goldstone report about Israel's Operation Cast Lead that was presented to the UN Human Rights Council (although Obama's government is definitely trying to bury it and congress is set to pass legislation rejecting Goldstone's report ASAP).

And what exactly is that "legal framework to respond to unlawful killings"? That sounds like a holdover policy from the Bush/Cheney/Gonzales administration which assured that no one in the CIA would ever be prosecuted for war crimes or human rights abuses. The Obama administration hasn't exactly embraced the ICC.

And just how much have those drone attack numbers increased? Democracy Now! journalist Amy Goodman, in the preface to her interview with Philip Alston reports:

Investigative reporter Jane Mayer of The New Yorker magazine revealed last week the number of US drone strikes in Pakistan has risen dramatically under President Obama. During his first nine-and-a-half months in office, Obama authorized at least forty-one CIA missile strikes in Pakistan, a rate of approximately one bombing a week. That’s as many drone attacks as President Bush sanctioned in his final three years in office. The attacks have killed between 326 and 538 people, that’s according to Jane Mayer. She writes, quote, “there is no longer any doubt that targeted killing has become official US policy.”

H1N1 Vaccination Hysteria

2009-10-27T11:09:00.000-06:00

For months, governments and the media have been sounding the loud alarm bell over H1N1 flu - urging people to get vaccinated ASAP. So, it's not like this is a surprise. In Calgary though, apparently it is.

The Alberta government, in its usual (cheaply-driven) wisdom, set up only 4 public clinic locations in Calgary for a population of some one million people. It doesn't exactly take a monkey with a calculator to figure out that those sites might then be slightly overwhelmed with vaccine-seeking people after they've been pounded with pandemic fear-mongering messages since last spring.

And that's what happened, of course.

People in line for 6 hours. 6 hours.

Edmontonians didn't fare any better.

"The response is certainly good, and we're glad to see that," said Gerry Predy, senior medical officer of health for Alberta Health Services.

"Now we have to find ways to streamline things if we can."

Eventually that might mean extending the hours of some clinics, getting patients to fill in paperwork while waiting in line, or bringing in more staff, but Predy said it's too soon to tell.

In the meantime, he pleaded for patience and suggested people bring books to read while waiting.

I'll tell you what, Dr Gerry Predy: you try waiting in line reading a book for hours on end when you're one of those high-risk people who are sick and sore to begin with and who should have been given quick, exclusive access to the vaccination before the general public and then we'll talk.

Predy actually had the audacity to chastise Albertans this morning, saying that those who weren't high-risk should have let those who are get the shots first.

That's not how these clinics were advertized by your department, Dr Predy. It was come one, come all.

I have lupus. I'm immune-compromized. I've gone back and forth on getting this shot since it hasn't been fully tested. I couldn't get into Calgary to stand in line in the frigid temps on Monday and I don't know when I'll get my shot. I wouldn't have gone in anyway. It was obvious that with so few clinic locations there would be problems. There is a city where when the first snowfall hits every year, Calgarians act like they've never seen snow before and proceed to panic on the streets resulting in a few hundred fender-benders - every single time, guaranteed. It's not a stretch to believe that attitude would apply to this situation as well - and it has. I'll talk to my doctor (who apparently doesn't have the vaccine to give me) about it when I see him on Wednesday.

In the meantime, who knows how many people will end up with the swine flu who looked at those lineups and walked away, unwilling to wait?

Yeah - that's health care you can count on, isn't it?

And don't even get me started on how Steve and the feds have mishandled this swine flu mess.

When is the Afghanistan war not a war?

2009-10-23T09:55:00.000-06:00

When some British immigration judges say it isn't:

Hundreds of Afghans living in Britain face being deported after immigration judges ruled that their home country's bloody conflict did not make the region an unsafe place to return failed asylum-seekers.

The test ruling opens the way for deportation flights to southern parts of the war-torn country where thousands of civilians have lost their lives since the toppling of the Taliban in 2001.

Three judges of the Immigration and Asylum Tribunal ruled on Wednesday that the level of "indiscriminate violence" was not enough to permit Afghans to claim general humanitarian protection in the United Kingdom. Hundreds of asylum-seekers a year are returned to Afghanistan if they have not convinced a court they are in fear of persecution or that their lives are in danger. The ruling on Wednesday prevents them from arguing that the country is a dangerous place.

Unbelievable.

Peter Kessler, the UN Refugee Agency's senior external affairs officer in the UK, said: "We are in disagreement with the conclusion that there can be returns during the winter months. The UNHCR has consistently advised that returns should not take place over the winter months (mid-October to 31 March), and only individuals from Kabul with family or other support structures may be returned."

The judges said: "Nobody is suggesting that the situation in Afghanistan is anything but a very long way short of ideal but... the numbers of civilians killed by indiscriminate violence turns out to be a great deal less than might otherwise have been expected."

Turning down an asylum claim by a Afghan man, 20, from Nangarhar, the court ruled that civilian casualty figures were not high enough to warrant protection under European law.

It's a war zone. Not that difficult to understand, is it?

Abdullah Tokhi, 35, repeatedly pleaded while seeking asylum in Britain that his life was in danger because of a sectarian and political blood feud back home. But the Government at the time decided that Afghanistan was now a safe place thanks to the intervention of Britain and the US, and Mr Tokhi was returned to his village. A year later he was dead, shot while walking in a crowded street in a bazaar.

But it's not like there's a war going on, so no big deal.

Just as a sidebar, I noticed while watching Frontline's 'Obama's War' last week and reading a story in The Independent about Helmand province that Canadian (and other NATO troops) were not even mentioned as being present in the region. It's all British and/or US troops apparently. We may not have the largest numbers but we are there. You'd think these journalists would at least acknowledge that.

AWOL: Moving

2009-10-18T22:42:00.000-06:00

I moved therefore I am...tired. Be back soon.

Newsflash: A Major Liberal Party Strategy Shift?

2009-10-09T15:39:00.001-06:00

Appearing on Friday afternoon's CBC Politics, journalist Evan Solomon previewed what may be a major strategy change by Michael Ignatieff and the Liberal party as a result of its (and his) tanking poll numbers.

Solomon said that in an interview for CBC Radio's The House to be run on Saturday, Ignatieff told him that (paraphrasing) he has backed away from a wholesale rejection of the Conservative government to opposing them on an "issue by issue" basis.

Looks like Michael 'your time is up' Ignatieff is history.

How long do you think it will take before the Cons react with the scary NDP-Libs-BQ coalition talking points after this news?

The Liberal party needs a platform, Michael. Why don't you start with that?

Obama's Undeserved Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-09T11:14:00.003-06:00

To say that I was shocked this morning to read the news that Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize is putting it mildly. When I watched his his acceptance speech in which he proclaimed that he wasn't sure that he deserved it, I had to wonder why he actually believed that he did.

U.S. President Barack Obama says he is deeply humbled by the Norwegian Nobel committee for selecting him as the winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize and will accept it as a "call to action.

He'll have to call it that because he definitely has not shown any actual accomplishments to date that would make him a contender for the prize based on results achieved.

It's not enough to call for an end to nuclear proliferation while you allow your closest Middle East ally, Israel, to continue to hide its nuclear weapons from the rest of the world while pushing for sanctions against a country like Iran which you only think might be developing them.

It's not enough to talk peace while you're racheting up the war in Afghanistan while placing withdrawal from Iraq on the back burner.

It's not enough to say you're going to close Gitmo as prisoners like child soldier Omar Khadr continue to rot away in your secretive gulag while you "study" the issue.

It's not enough to say you're discontinuing oppressive Bush regime policies when you're, in fact, embracing renditions, withholding torture photos, covering for Bush administration and CIA war crimes, supporting the suppression of foreign prisoners' rights, violating Pakistan's sovereignty with continued drone attacks, killing endless numbers of civilians, pumping up AFRICOM and refusing to demand that the Israeli government end its apartheid against the Palestinian people while propping it up with weapons and billions of dollars.

It's not enough to give speeches with lofty rhetoric about your peaceful aspirations when your actions prove otherwise.

And that record certainly shouldn't have been enough for the Nobel Prize committee to have awarded Obama this honour.

The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish, Danish and Norwegian: Nobels fredspris) is one of five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel. According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."
- Wiki

*****

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

- Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Stockholm, Sweden, December 11, 1964.

Update:

I guess I've thrown my lot in with the terrorists. Now who does that remind me of...?

Quote du Jour: Iggy's Face Plant

2009-10-08T15:39:00.001-06:00

It's like he [Ignatieff] went from being the messiah to being the village idiot.
- Frank Graves, EKOS president on CBC's Politics

Graves was reacting to his company's latest poll which shows Ignatieff's approval number at 19%.

Ouch.

Quote du Jour: America is the "most screwed up nation in the world"

2009-10-06T21:32:00.001-06:00

Am I reading this right?

Was it transcribed correctly?

Did Pakistan's foreign minister actually say this to Wolf Blitzer?

BLITZER: Where is Bin Laden?

QURESHI: Who knows?

BLITZER: Where do you think?

QUERSHI: I don't know.

BLITZER: Why is it so hard to find him?

QURESHI: You tell me.

BLITZER: You're the foreign minister from Pakistan. Everybody says he's in that disputed, that border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan, probably in the Pakistani side.

QURESHI: The United States is the most informed nation, the most screwed up nation in the world.

BLITZER: Did you know what's going on in Pakistan?

QURESHI: So do you. Americans are in the region and you have intelligence, ground intelligence. And you know, a sophisticated intelligence.

Huh?

CanWest Restructuring - No Tears for the Aspers Here

2009-10-06T10:56:00.001-06:00

So, CanWest has filed for court protection - not the same as filing for bankruptcy but a major shakeup, nonetheless.

The filing involves CanWest Media Inc. (CMI), which is the holding company that owns several divisions that make up CanWest. It also includes CanWest Television Limited Partnership, which holds Global Television and cable TV assets MovieTime, DejaView and Fox Sports World.

The National Post newspaper is also included in the filing, but CanWest's newspaper division, CanWest LP, is not part of the filing. The newspaper operation, which includes several large daily papers such as the Montreal Gazette, Ottawa Citizen, Calgary Herald and Vancouver Sun, may seek a separate filing of its own, since it is restructuring debt with a different group of bondholders.

The Alliance Atlantis assets, purchased in partnership with Goldman Sachs a few years ago, which include specialty TV channels such as HGTV and the Food Network, are also not included in the filing.

Good to see that HGTV may be safe. Of all of their assets, that's the only one I actually have any use for. The rest of their right-wing/libertarian driven empire could disappear tomorrow, afaic. I'd feel badly if anyone lost their jobs but the writing has been on the wall about this eventual outcome since Izzy died - leaving massive debts - and his son Leonard took over.

Via The Georgia Straight from last December, I'd say that this kind of attitude might have a little something to do with the trouble the Aspers are having now:

The eldest son, David Asper, who is chair of the National Post, was more bombastic: “We own the papers. We have the right to have the papers print whatever the hell we want them to say. And if people don’t like it, they can go to hell. They can leave, get another job. People knew that Conrad [Black] had a much more hands-off policy.”

He can say whatever the hell he wants to say all right. And we can choose whether or not to buy his bullshit. In this case, it looks like the people have spoken.

Related:

Canwest CEO Leonard Asper's memo to staff

Rumours of Liberal Party Turncoats

2009-10-06T10:16:00.001-06:00

The Star reports today that three Liberal party members are contemplating crossing the floor - the only actual name mentioned being that of Ruby Dhalla.

The excitable and apparently 12 yr old (just check out those exclamation points!!!) Dimitri Soudas is working it behind the scenes:

And indeed, Dimitri Soudas, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, sent out a mass-distributed email yesterday drawing attention to the Liberals' rebuff of Dhalla's bill [to increase old-age benefits to immigrant seniors.]. "They are voting against the (private member's bill) of MP Ruby Dhalla! Their own bill!" Soudas's email said.

With Dhalla's Nannygate troubles still brewing and after the way the Cons treated here during that scandal, I find it hard to believe that she would join their ranks. But stranger things have happened.

As for these rumours, I'm sure the Cons are feeling quite full of themselves based on their rising poll numbers so perhaps they think that stirring up stories about Liberal party disunity (beyond the real stories of their internal disarray - see: Coderre, Denis) will only work to their benefit.

Liberal party honchos, in the meantime, have denied the rumours calling them "mischief".

Not to worry, it's not like they have any important things to talk about like war. What's a little "mischief" when Canadians are dying overseas?

Related:

James Curran notes that Igantieff has given Dhalla a new advisory poistion today.

Canadian Taxpayers Don't Pay for Gov't Advertizing

2009-10-05T12:57:00.004-06:00

Newsflash: Canadian taxpayers don't pay for government ads. No, really. Vic Toews said so during Question Period on Monday so it must be true.

The issue: Tories spend 5 times more on ads than H1N1 prevention

The confrontation:

Martha Hall-Findlay (MP-Willowdale): Mr Speaker, I tried last week to get some answers on government advertizing but got no answer - no numbers. So I'll try again and I'm going to ask the President of the Treasury Board because, after all, he is the one responsible for the spending and he should know. So, how much - exactly - have Canadian taxpayers now paid for this partisan, pat yourself on the back advertizing so far?

Vic Toews (Treasury Board President): Well, in fact, the Government of Canada does not bill the taxpayer for that kind of advertizing. What the Government of Canada does is get out key messages that reach a large number of Canadians on important issues - and they laugh - H1N1, elder abuse, the home renovation tax credit, Canadian forces recruitment. That's what the role of government is and we will continue to do that.

Martha Hall-Findlay (MP-Willowdale): I'm not exactly sure, Mr Speaker, who the President of the Treasury Board thinks actually pays for government spending if it isn't the Canadian taxpayers. I'm not sure which is worse: the fact that he doesn't have the numbers, he doesn't know them or he's trying to hide something...

When Hall-Findlay once again asked how much the Cons had spent on advertizing for their Economic Action Plan, Toews responded by talking about H1N1 advertizing.

Pathetic.

Steve's Ode to the NDP

2009-10-05T11:55:00.004-06:00

Maybe Harper is having (momentary) second thoughts about treating the NDP party like a battered spouse every chance he gets. Or maybe this is just a very public thank you to Jack et al for propping up his government.

Whatever it is, it's definitely cringe-worthy (although not as nauseating as watching Tom DeLay on Dancing with the ~~Felons~~ Stars).

I'm redecorating the blogstead...

2009-10-03T18:07:00.002-06:00

Hopefully, nothing unexpected will ensue.

Would you like some fries with that?

2009-10-03T16:01:00.002-06:00

Our Canadian military: hard at work and apparently quite hungry:

Investigation launched after military helicopter touches down for burgers

KENORA -- A spokesman for Defence Minister Peter MacKay said Saturday an investigation has been launched after a Canadian Forces helicopter pilot landed in Kenora recently -- apparently to pick up some cheeseburgers.

“The matter is under investigation to determine what happened. As such, I can’t say much more until all the facts are gathered,” wrote Dan Dugas, the minister’s director of communications in an e-mail.

On Thursday, employees at an A&W fast-food restaurant were surprised to see a military pilot walk in and make a takeout order — while his helicopter was parked outside.

Michelle Patterson, who has worked at the restaurant for 16 years, said Friday she was shocked to see flying dust when the helicopter landed on a baseball diamond across from the eatery.

The pilot joked about wanting to go through the drive-thru but apparently said he wasn’t able to fit.

He ordered enough food for six people, and told her he was on his way to refuel at the airport before flying to Thunder Bay, Ont., and eventually back to Quebec, Patterson said.

The minister’s spokesman said there were no public safety concerns surrounding the landing.

“First of all, at no time during the landing or takeoff was there a danger to the public,” he said in the e-mail. “The Forces thank the local police for securing the sports field for the helicopter’s landing.”

He could not comment on how often military pilots touch down in public spaces to get dinner or what protocols need to be in place.

Kenora is 500 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay.

To be fair, everybody knows that A&W doesn't offer home delivery.

What's wrong with this picture?

2009-10-01T12:51:00.005-06:00

As MP Hedy Fry noted during Question Period today, the similarities are striking:

The Conservative party logo:

The Vancouver Olympics logo as rolled out By Hudson's Bay Co. today:

Side note:

All of the athletes' clothing will be made in Canada, but some of the apparel that will be sold to the public is being manufactured overseas.

It's not like Canadian manufacturing companies need the jobs or anything...

“Our orders are down 30 per cent on average, but they're not falling as sharply as they were,” said Jayson Myers, president of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters. Weak U.S. demand and little business investment mean “I'm still not seeing any signs of a sustained recovery, based on new orders coming in.”

Stuff a cork in it, Corker

2009-10-01T11:37:00.004-06:00

Via the CBC:

U.S. senator slams 'parasitic' Canada over drug prices

An American legislator called Canada "parasitic" on Wednesday for siphoning U.S. dollars to Canada with low prescription drug prices while his country does "all the innovation."

Canada benefits financially from America's role as a world leader in medical advances, Republican Senator Bob Corker charged in an exchange with a Liberal MP as she testified before a U.S. Senate committee.

"One of the things that has troubled me greatly about our system is the fact that we pay more for pharmaceuticals and devices than other countries, and yet it's not really our country so much that's the problem, it's the parasitic relationship that Canada and France and other countries have towards us," the Tennessee lawmaker told Carolyn Bennett.

"Meaning that you set prices and unfortunately all the innovation, all the technological breakthroughs, just about, take place in our country .… You benefit from us, and we pay for that, and I resent that."

Bennett, a family doctor and one-time minister of state for public health, was one of five people testifying before the Senate special committee on aging. The panel, chaired by Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl and including newly minted Sen. Al Franken, was examining how successful health-care systems keep their costs low while maintaining quality care.

She seemed puzzled by Corker's remarks, reminding him that drug pricing was a global concern, not part of a plot by Canada.

"It's the drug companies, sir, and they're multinational — it's nothing about the United States of America," she told him.

If Corker wants to know why American drug prices are so high, maybe he should talk to some of his health care industry/pharma manufacturing campaign donors - not to mention his fellow senators who are also on the take.

While he's at it, he might want to learn about about how Big Pharma actually spends its money:

marcia angell
Former editor in chief, The New England Journal of Medicine

[The pharmaceutical companies'] R&D costs are very high, in absolute terms. But they're quite small relative to their other expenditures and profits. The drug companies spend on average, by their own figures, last year, 15 to 17 percent on R&D. And that's a lot of money. But their profits are higher. Their profits are 18.5 percent. And what's really interesting is what they spend on marketing and administration, by their own figures, is on average 35 percent. That's over twice as much as what they spend on R&D. So if they point to their R&D costs as some sort of justification for the high prices, what on earth can they say about their marketing costs, which are over twice that much? ...

...

Companies argue it's important to keep this a largely private market to protect innovation, and that's why drug companies in other countries are less innovative. Over half of all drugs are produced here.

This is like Holy Roman Empire: It's not holy, it's not Roman, it's not an empire. This question has many of the same problems. Almost every element of what you just said is wrong. Let's look at the big drug companies first. Of the 10 top drug companies, five are European and five are American. Their innovation is much the same. Their turnout of new drugs is much the same. Their marketing budgets are much the same. Their profits are much the same. This, in fact, is a global industry.

All of them have the lion's share of their sales here, because prices are so much higher in the United States than they are in Europe and Canada. So it's sort of good public relations to portray themselves as quintessentially American businesses. They're not. Even in countries where there are price controls, these companies are doing extremely well. So that's the first thing that's wrong with your question.

The second is the implication that these are innovative businesses. They are not innovative businesses. They are giant marketing and PR machines that turn out predominantly "me too" drugs, and whose truly innovative drugs are based mainly on taxpayer-funded work. So they are not innovative. ...

What is going on here, when the pharmaceutical industry insists that they should be essentially left alone, is a threat. It's a threat to the American public. They are saying, "Don't mess with us. Do nothing about our obscene profits. Do nothing about these unsustainable increases in prices, or else we will not give you your miracle cures." Well, guess what? They're not getting them the miracle cures in the first place. But that is their very successful PR pitch. "We are the source of all miracles. Don't mess with us." ...

...

One argument [is that] he Canadians don't invent the drugs. They're parasitic on our R&D. It's unfair.

In fact, the pharmaceutical industry is what's parasitic on publicly funded research. The pharmaceutical industry likes to depict itself as a research-based industry, as the source of innovative drugs. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is their incredible PR and their nerve.

In fact, if you look at where the original research comes from on which new drugs are based, it tends to be from the NIH [National Institutes of Health], from the academic medical centers, and from foreign academic medical centers. Studies of this, looking at the seminal research on which drug patents are based, have found that about 15 percent of the basic research papers, reporting the basic research, came from industry. That's just 15 percent.

The other 85 percent came from NIH-supported work carried out in American academic medical centers. In one study, 30 percent came from foreign academic medical centers. So what we know about the numbers indicates that the foreign academic medical centers are responsible for more new drug discoveries than the industry itself.

- Frontline